> I have installed superserver 2.1.3 on a windows XP computer. This is the
> server I am trying to connect to over the network. On this computer I have
> also installed Visual Basic 6.0, IBExpert and the ODBC to connect to the
> database. The computer has an IP 192.168.1.2. I can connect perfectly fine
> to the database with IBExpert and with Visual Basic on this computer.
> Everything works well. The problem arises when I try to connect another
> computer to the database.

Did you enable access to Firebird Server (application fbserver.exe, or
port 3050, depending on what kind of firewall you use) in your firewall?
You need to do that in order to be able to connect to it from other
computers.

> 2nd computer: Has windows XP installed, IBExpert, IP is 192.168.1.8 (can
> ping the server), Visual Basic and the ODBC for firebird. Basically what I
> want to do is to use this computer to access the database instead of having
> to program on the same machine where the server is installed. Initially I
> had installed the superserver on this machine also and I thought I could
> connect to the database server with this setup. I could not. Reading more
> on network connections to firebird I figured I only needed the client files
> installed on this computer. So I uninstalled the server and I installed the
> client files only with admin tools since I would like to run some admin
> tasks on the database from this computer.

Once you solve the firewall problem from computer 1, you will be able to
connect to its databases using connection string such as
192.168.1.2:c:\path\to\database.fdb
(where "c:\path\to\database.fdb" is a path on computer 1. It does not
matter that computer 2 does't "see" this path or even has some other
content in it).

> I also read I needed to modify the host files on both computers. I did. the
> host file for the server looks like this
> 127.0.0.1 localhost
> 192.168.1.2 fb_server

It's not necessary to modify the hosts, unless you want to use hostnames
in your connection strings and the standard Windows resolution of names
doesn't work for you.

> When I try connecting to the database via the odbc it gives me the following
> msg:

Oh, ODBC. Then you are on your own - what I wrote above works with a
direct Firebird connection. I don't know how to set up ODBC, as I have
never used it.

Pepak